This invention relates to a mattress-type support pad, and more particularly, to a support pad including a layer of an air and liquid permeable three dimensional matrix of polymeric material.
Recently, health concerns have led hospitals to cover bed mattresses with liquid impermeable vinyl covers which can be easily washed and disinfected. Conventional sheets are typically used over the vinyl-covered mattresses. Bed-ridden individuals, including individuals suffering from skin ulcers and/or open sores, are often forced to spend extended periods of time on sheets which have become soaked with wetness. Since the damp sheets are positioned over liquid impermeable vinyl, the dampness remains trapped inside the sheeting, between an individual's body and the vinyl cover. Simple incontinence pads, usually paper bonded to impermeable plastic, hold perspiration and body fluids in an uncomfortable and possibly harmful proximity to the individual's body.
The known mattress pads suffer from the inability to allow for efficient drainage and/or evaporation of patients' perspiration from the sheeting, often leading to severe patient discomfort in the form of bed sores or, possibly, decubitus ulcers.
Thus, there exists a need for an improved mattress pad which includes the desirable properties of permitting drainage and/or evaporation of perspiration entering into the pad and also permitting air to permeate in order to hasten such evaporation.
In disparate fields of art, there are known materials composed of low density matted thermoplastic macro-filaments irregularly looped and intermingled in highly porous and/or open peak and valley three-dimensional sheet structures. Such materials are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,212,692; 4,252,590; and Re. 31,599; the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference. One application of these materials has been as soil retention matting for use in the building industry. Similar materials have been used as seat cushions in marine environments.